Just wow
Or WoT?
Let's hunt the Martians!
NASA successfully landed its fifth robotic rover on the surface of Mars just five metres from its target, the American space agency said after releasing footage of the historic landing. As Perseverance plunged through the Martian atmosphere and shed its lower shell, its cameras were able to provide scientists with a view of …
Their lander cams are massively better than any web-cam I have here in UKland but I do have better digital cameras than those.
I think the little robot's best cameras are better than any of mine and her upload speed is certainly better, even though she has lots of neighbours crowding the same bandwidth.
We should land a radio dish on Mars so we could do Very, Very, Excessively Hugely Long Baseline Interferometry. Maybe drop it onto Mount Olympus? Maybe with an I.R and optical telescope so we could do "stereo" images in co-operating with Hubble or Earth-bound eyes?
I'm sure we could land some in Ikea-flat-pack form and have a little robot snap together all of the bits.
Make them modular and they could even be upgradeable using Gifts From Earth.
Best space probe footage ever.
Can't agree with that. Every mission is fantastic for its time. But, for me, it's difficult to top the footage from Cassini-Huygens. Though, if we ever manage to do something on Venus or in any of the oceans on Titan, Europa, Enceladus, etc., that would certainly count.
Rumor has it that there is additional audio that the probe captured, but NASA are keeping it secret. The audio, after post-processing and translating from Martian, is:
“It’s a robot! I’ve never seen one in the wild before! Where d’you come from, fella? Can we keep him, Roy? If he doesn’t belong to anyone?”
I tend to agree, and I think it stands up now if you remember that was way back in 2005 on a probe launched in 1997. Of course, iirc, the Cassini-Huygens video was something of a construct built from not-really-video sources.
MMV, naturally. What seems "best ever" is often dependent on ones age and personal history.
Thank you to the Linux Fanboi journalist for mentioning that Linux is running on the non-critical camera platform.
The tech-brief obliquely mentions VxWorks which is used for the critical parts of the landing platform (including the cameras involved in the actual landing operation.)
VxWorks often runs in hypervisor mode and can run itself, Linux or other OS as virtual machines.
Anon because ... ... I couldn't possibly comment!
VxWorks is an RTOS, and that's probably why it's used for things that work better with an RTOS.
I used to compile images for Vx and Linux back in the day, wifi access points specifically. Vx had a much smaller footprint but of course required license fees etc.. One day the manager said "Fit it in 2M flash and we'll use Linux." We made it work.
Thing is, VxWorks is a staple of NASA missions. It's a given that it's running on the thing.
As journalists, we're here to highlight what's new -- it's called news, right -- and what's new here is the use of customized Linux and FFMPEG. As someone above pointed out, NASA name-checked FFMPEG in their briefings, so that and the Linux side is newsworthy. We've written about VxWorks in the past on space missions.
FWIW we're working on a separate piece describing the chips and OSes on the rover in more details, and I'll add a reference to VxWorks to this article.
C.
VxWorks is by far the most common OS environment in aerospace (mission critical) applications and there are various flavours; VxWorks Cert is a bit more expensive (for the board support package) and is obviously constrained but it was designed for this sort of thing,
Makes a lot of sense for NASA to use it.
Safety critical could use it, but that is more the area of Greenhills Integrity (with the $MM price tag).
re- VxWorks often runs in hypervisor mode and can run itself, Linux or other OS as virtual machines.
Migod- this takes me back to my old 1970s VM/370 days, when we sometimes ran a beta VM/370 under VM.
Oh- And one guy (an IBMer) actually ran VM seven stages deep. Was it just as a test, or to impress his IBM "manager"? We'll never know.
But he then either ran out of memory (Hey, 640KB should be enough for anyone!) or he ran out of disk room.
re- "VxWorks often runs in hypervisor mode and can run itself, Linux or other OS as virtual machines. "
Migod- this takes me back to my old 1970s VM/370 days, when we sometimes ran a beta VM/370 under VM.
Oh- And one guy (an IBMer) actually ran VM seven stages deep. Was it just as a test, or to impress his IBM "manager"? We'll never know.
But he then either ran out of memory (Hey, 640KB should be enough for anyone!) or he ran out of disk room.
Can someone explain why the parachute panels are different colours? Is it so that the video will pick up anything unexpected in how the parachute behaves, or just some design pattern someone thought looked nice?
I must say the thought of opening a parachute at supersonic velocity does sound quite frightening. It is the size of a baseball field and weighs less than me, so really hats off to the team in Tiverton. Maybe the factory will make it into el Reg's science tour of Great Britain?
Probably about half an hour or so into the press conference, when talking about the parachute, one of them said that the different colours were primarily so that they could know its orientation, and that pattern did a good job of making it clear which way was which. But secondarily, he strongly hinted at there being some sort of a secret message encoded in it, sort of like how Curiosity has 'JPL' encoded in Morse code on its wheels, so it's in all the tracks it makes. I wonder what the new secret message is?
The Guardian has published the explanation. A Reddit user used a python script to work out the ASCII representation within the panels of the parachute, to show it reads "Dare mighty things".
During Monday's briefing where the video was revealed, @NASAJPL's Al Chen mentioned there were hidden Easter Eggs within the video, he also mentioned the phrase, "Dare mighty things" in describing the work JPL does.
The origins of the phrase are an 1899 speech by Theodore Roosevelt, in which he said: “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though chequered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/23/dare-mighty-things-hidden-message-found-on-nasa-mars-rover-parachute
"those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much"
That's patronising, I much prefer neither enjoying or suffering much. He who fights and runs away lives to run away another day.
Genghis Khan fought a land war in Asia and destroyed everybody before him. He said the one people he regretted fighting was the Sami. The pacifist Sami just retreated north, and the cold killed all the Mongolians who followed them.
If we can treat ships as people we can treat rovers as people as well. As you would know if you had a functioning soul.
However... Mars Rovers are known for their Sarcasm: https://twitter.com/SarcasticRover
The epithet 'plucky' has been used by Vultures on both sides of the pond. It has been applied to more than 1 subject type, though at a quick glance, the term appears to be almost common parlance in being applied to machines, and especially space probes.
https://search.theregister.com/?q=plucky
'plucky Mars Express probe'
Brilliant stuff :)
Ionisation during the atmospheric entry phase will sadly prevent the most spectacular images being streamed real-time from landers on their way down.
When the MRO is replaced I'd expect that real time video feed will be included along with some spy-sat level optics, (will it be Elon or the Chinese posing for the photo-op!)
But at least the electromagnetic stuff doesn't need to travel the Hohmann route.
Well ... A Hohmann transfer is a geodesic which connects two planets. Light travelling from Mars to Earth travels along a geodesic connecting two planets, so ...
(I know it's not the same really. Apart from anything else the light geodesics are null.)
You say that, but I'm eternally in awe of anyone who can pack two miles of cable and somehow not have them immediately tied into physically impossible 5-dimensional knots the moment they turn their back. Shooting nuclear powered science labs into space on the end of a barely controlled explosion is all well and good, but parachute packers are clearly wizards.
Well, that is a point. It is clear that every new reserve that I've ever come across, perfectly packed from the factory, doubles in volume when repacked after a test unpack or deployment. Took me two days to get this one back in its pack the first time...
You say that, but I'm eternally in awe of anyone who can pack two miles of cable and somehow not have them immediately tied into physically impossible 5-dimensional knots the moment they turn their back.
Well, the secret is that they don't have RJ45 connectors each end, so their propensity to tangle (with themselves, and all the others) is greatly reduced.
At one point, the ESA Exomars rover was going to have a ride share with a NASA rover (possibly this one). The ESA rover was described to me as a "mini rover", so having established the mass of the NASA rover as being ~ one metric Tonne, I asked if the NASA rover was actually a Rover Mini....
Yes, I'm still amazed when I see the complexity of the landing, dictated by the atmosphere.
Gosh: shield extraction + parachute + 8 rockets + this crazy crane landing the rover !
So many steps could have gone glitchy that would have crashed to poor thing !
Landing a robotic rover on Mars is no easy feat; about 50 per cent of all attempts have ended in failure before Perseverance, it's said.
It's not just said, it's true. However, this is over the whole history of sending probes to Mars: the first few were basically carefully aimed rockets. Recent missions are much more successful with NASA 3 for 3, I think. Even so, each mission is still essentially a prototype building on the previous ones: this one is the first to have a pinpoint landing; and it has a helicopter for the first time ever on such a probe. But, the next one is an even bigger challenge: not only getting safely to the right spot but launching a rocket back from there.
"Having a rocket come back sounds pretty unlikely to me."
Seems fairly straightforward. Just a case of having enough fuel left to launch again. Then manoeuvre out of Mars orbit at the right time - possibly having had a rendezvous with an orbiter vehicle. A bit like the recent China moon mission - albeit with about double the gravity.
The UAE Mars orbiter has pulled itself away from a close orbit as part of its final positioning. It wouldn't matter how long it would take for a rock transporter to get back to Earth without a continuous burn.
"Just a case of having enough fuel left to launch again."
Just? That's a hell of an extra weight to carry and, worse, try to land with. That's why NASA et al are looking at landing empty fuelling tankers which can create fuel from the atmosphere over a period of long months in advance of a return vehicle landing close enough to run a hose over.
That's one of the nice things about the latest lander. Using maps and terrain scanning they managed to land within 5 metres of their target spot. That experience will be crucial to landing near their return home fuel supply.
"Does anyone know what the chances of anything coming from Mars are?"
Last week, a billion to one.
This weekend, a million to one.
Yesterday, a hundred to one ........
......and still they come!
Next to "The Songs Of Distant Earth", one of the best musical adaptations of an SF novel.
There's a sequel to "WOTW". It's as good as the original.
There's a sequel to "The Time Machine", too. It, too, is excellent.
Off-topic, yes, but someone might now go looking and find joy.
Nope, NASA tend to use proper measurements these days... since about 1990 really. Well, not proper measurements, but a step in the right direction. NASA often have to translate the units to outdated forms in press releases as the US is one of only two countries left on the planet to use such outdated measures.
Well, since about 1990 mostly. Then there was that pesky Mars Climate Orbiter incident… 1998/99.
It's always weird to me, considering the USA has been a member of the Metre Convention since 1878.
Then there's the whole problem about having two different measurements for a foot...
To the total sum of human knowledge, Mars is a planet entirely populated by robots. This video is evidence the robot population continues to be repopulated from a neighboring planet as older robots expire. This is really the biggest threat to humanity, not Covid, Trump, or anything else. I don't know why our news media is not making a bigger deal out of this. Our planet could be next for robot colonization!
It still seems to me that words such as miracle and so on are not very suitable. A huge number of qualified people worked on this project. They seem to be smart enough to calculate everything they need in advance.
Nevertheless, this is an excellent result.
I hope that the results of this mission will provide us with a lot of useful information.
The "miracle" is in not encountering any of Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns" - although there were probably some fingers-crossed possible events that had no contingency.
Murphy again: "There are a finite number of things that you can think of that might go wrong - and an infinite number off things that can go wrong"
Why didn't they put a couple of $100 drones on the lander? There is enough atmosphere for parachutes to work so I am guessing there is enough for a drone to bite on?
This one costs £99 with dimensions 29.5 x 20.5 x 9.3 cm and weighs 690 Grams. Some software revisions to make it fly patterns without control from base with automatic reconnection for recharging and you could map a whole lot more of the surface than the lander can cover. Just saying.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/EACHINE-Distance-1200Mah-Foldable-Quadcopter/dp/B089LVQ42H/ref=sr_1_6?adgrpid=53635035819&dchild=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA1eKBBhBZEiwAX3gql_NFT7BiWUXQy05k22RnQyldWI09i3NZqdNwZq5yPRqnwlrFKHMT6BoC6SgQAvD_BwE&hvadid=259045035030&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1007004&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=b&hvrand=6702146350854066137&hvtargid=kwd-295218097859&hydadcr=14850_1829006&keywords=drone+with+good+camera&qid=1614354728&sr=8-6&tag=googhydr-21
An incredibly wonderful technical, engineering and scientific achievement.
When I was born [allegedly, I don't really remember the events happening around me at the time] absolutely no man-made object had orbited the Earth. Today, we're landing alien, semi-autonomous, nuclear-powered robot tanks armed with death-rays on Mars. And helicopters!
Those guys are truly impresive.
I look forward to a Linux patch fixing the audio and the flight of the first extraterrestrial flying machine.
Persevere, little robot and take your human friends to places "where no man - where no *one* - has gone before".